


With Frost and Fire

by bestworstcase (windrattlestheblinds)



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Varian and the Seven Kingdoms
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy Holidays, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Post-V7K, Slice of Life, VAT7K Discord Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28276656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windrattlestheblinds/pseuds/bestworstcase
Summary: Two years after the opening of the Eternal Library, Varian receives an invitation. His friends have scattered to the winds for the holidays, but hey—what better way to ring in the season than to round up the gang for a quick jaunt through mortal peril during the darkest night of the year?
Relationships: Varian & Hugo & Nuru & Yong, slight Varian/Hugo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	1. The Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IFoundYouJustineTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IFoundYouJustineTime/gifts).



> Written for the VAT7K Discord Secret Santa Gift Exchange! Happy holidays, all!
> 
> Chapter 2 up tomorrow (Dec 24), Chapter 3 on Dec 25. 
> 
> A little fast and loose with the timeline here, but I imagine completing the trials is a task of about two and a half years; this fic is set two years after that. This makes Hugo about 23, Varian 22, Nuru 20, and Yong 16 or so. Their ages are not especially important except insofar as a good chunk of time has passed since the gang first met and we’re well into “established found family” territory here.

###  **Chapter One ◆** ** _The Letter_**

The Eternal Library is in one of its _moods_ again. 

Varian shields his eyes as he peeks over the mezzanine rail. Shimmering light seethes in the spiraling depths; the Library gurgles up a long, hollow moan. When they’d broken the seals and opened the place up for the first time two years ago, _that sound_ made his skin crawl and his heart judder against his ribs; now he just rolls his eyes, fondly exasperated. The Library isn’t haunted so much as it is _cantankerous._

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya,” he mutters, yawning. Ten minutes ago, he’d jolted awake to the rustling of a thousand pages and harsh, frost-blue light glittering over the glassware on his workbench. _Typical._ “Y’know some of us have gotta s- _sl-sleep_ —” 

His jaw cracks around another yawn. The Library responds with a pneumatic rattle, and, grumbling under his breath, Varian trots down the sloped path leading from the mezzanine and into the heart of the beast. It’s a short jog. Shorter than it really should be, given the apparent depth of the place. But _space_ is on a level with _sleep_ as far as the Library’s concerned: one more silly oddity it’s not human enough to care about. The infinite distance folds up like a neglected accordion and then spits him out, a little dizzy, at the nexus. 

The stacks arrange themselves in undulant coils leading off in every direction. Irregular. Organic, almost. It reminds Varian a little of the vast termite mounds dotting the Aberdinian scrubland: he and Yong had found a broken one while searching for the entrance to the fire trial, and underneath the cragged and lumpy exterior there’d been a labyrinthine pile of tunnels and small chambers molded without any regard for human geometries.

If the Library had been sculpted by some sort of book-loving cosmic insect colony, Varian hasn’t seen any trace of it—but he wouldn’t be _surprised,_ either. 

Book-termites. Book-mites?

Whatever.

He’s still not sure what the stuff _is,_ exactly. Last time he tried to chip off a sample, the wall had grown a beaky gargoyle face and _screamed_ at him. 

Varian pats it. It _feels_ like stone: smooth, hard, with a slight graininess that puts him in mind of shale. Sort of warm. Sort of… _slick,_ though his hands always come away dry. “Uh, there, there,” he says. “What’s wrong _this_ time?”

There’s a _clonk._ Then a chiming noise as the wall buckles inwards. It shreds apart like wet paper, and the mouth of an archway yawns wide—the crisp blue light of the Library ripples as ordinary sunlight washes into it, and—

“— _nnnny_ one home? Heh. Hoo, _boy;_ is it just me or is this place creepier than normal today? Hello-o- _ooo?_ ” 

“Ah!” Varian grins and ducks through the opening into the cavernous antechamber. “Hey, Eugene!” 

“Varian!” A rakish smile breaks over Eugene’s face. He spins around, cocking his fingers in greeting. “Ha! Knew if I kept yammering one of you’d have to turn up sooner or later. How’s the royal alchemist doing on this fine winter morning?”

“Library’s cranky,” Varian drawls as he takes the steps down into the chamber proper. 

The entrance to the Library sits in the cradle of an enormous sinkhole—one of the hundreds that honeycomb the Pingora Mountains south of Old Corona. It’s a big place. Beautiful. Sunlight tumbles through the weathered opening in the ceiling and gives life to a copse of small but stubborn trees and a bimberry thicket at the bottom; half a dozen trickles of water cascade down with the sun, pooling along one side of the cavern. The wintry cold that blankets the surface in snow at this time of the year never seems to reach this far, though Varian does feel the whisper of a cold draft against the back of his neck as Eugene meets him at the base of the steps.

“Yeah, yeah, _inside voices._ ” Brushing this concern away, Eugene tugs an envelope out of his pocket and holds it up: letting it dangle gingerly between his thumb and forefinger, like he’s afraid it’ll burst into flames. The pale parchment glows when the sunlight catches it. “Mail call! _Someone_ still hasn’t figured out the change in address.”

“Don’t tell me—Morcant again?” 

“Got it in one. Man. She is _persistent,_ huh?”

Varian chuckles. “You could say that. Well, come on.”

Echoes of their footsteps bounce merrily around the cavern as they follow the steps back up. Bits and pieces of the Library spill past the boundaries of the entrance, ghostly-blue amalgams of pillars and cornices, ornate parapets and lintels leading nowhere. Like the scrawlings of a feverish architect. It all clashes spectacularly with the rest of the cavern.

“So-o, not as busy as usual today,” Eugene says.

“Mmhm. Yong’s still finishing up his apprenticeship in Antares, Nuru’s in Tarazed ’til the end of the month dealing with _princess stuff_ —” they share a sympathetic grimace “—and Hugo left for Azoth yesterday morning. Got the Library all to myself ’til he gets back on Sonnesday.”

“So you’re _alone_ for the holiday! Whew.”

“I’ll manage,” Varian says dryly. “Anyways—” 

Benches curve away from either side of the Library’s entrance like wings. He plops down onto one and holds out his hand.

“Lay it on me!” 

Eugene drapes the letter over his palm, then sprawls onto the bench beside him while Varian cracks the seal on the envelope. 

“ _Hn._ ”

“What’s it say?”

Clearing his throat, Varian shakes the parchment out and reads, “‘Dear Mr. Kardossh—’ which, _ugh._ ” Adult he may be, but _Mr. Kardossh_ is something people call his _dad._ Eugene snickers. “‘—Mr. Crescere, Mr. Su, and Princess Nuru,’

“‘Once again, I must apologize for my most recent attempt on your lives—’” Eugene makes a choking noise, but Varian just rolls his eyes and carries on. “‘—and extend my heartfelt congratulations on your continued survival. Has it become trite at this point to plead ignorance and reassure you that any… _inconveniences_ caused by my, or rather _our,_ latest specimen were entirely accidental? Unintended? I rather fear it has. In any case, I was delighted to hear the tale of how you unraveled the curse on the Dhipsh Letters. Marvelous work. I do hope Mr. Crescere is recovering well.’”

“This _woman,_ ” Eugene mutters.

“ _Eh._ She hasn’t seriously tried to kill us since the incident in Kaitos. ‘More to the point, my friends—’ see, we’re _friends_ now, heh. ‘—I’ve recently received word of another item of interest for you and your Library. Are you familiar with the work of Lord Simon Ghorskeyn? He is a rather notorious figure in less, shall we say, _savory_ occult circles. He has also recently died. Again. They are quite sure it will stick this time. I’m told the body has been _thoroughly_ examined.’”

“…Eurgh.” 

“Wizards, am I right?”

“Well,” Eugene sighs, “can’t be worse than the _monkeys._ ” 

“Actually—” 

“Nope, no, uh-uh—don’t wanna know.”

Varian grins. “Let’s see, uh, ‘His estate has passed to his great-grand-niece, Vivienne Ghorskeyn, who I’m given to understand is _not_ an inheritor of his scholarly inclinations. The contents of his library are to be auctioned off on the fifteenth of this month from the family manor in Cardon. I contacted Lady Ghorskeyn to inquire as to whether this would include her uncle’s personal grimoire, and she has assured me that it does. Well, from what I’ve heard the man was quite _fiendish_ in his devotion to occult investigation and altogether bereft of moral sense. There are bound to be all manner of dreadful secrets hidden in those pages. Terribly exciting, isn’t it?

“‘Calliope will, of course, be there. I trust we remain united in our efforts to ensure that she does not get _her_ pompous little hands on anything so juicy. I can, and will, outbid her on my own, but it is ever so much more fun to do it as a team, don’t you agree?

“‘Warmest regards, Her Grace the Duchess of Quintonia, Rosalia Morcant.’ _Well._ ” Shaking his head, Varian stuffs the letter back into its envelope. “Isn’t that _peachy?_ She found _another. Haunted. Book._ ” 

“Heh. Just in time for Sun-Eater’s Night.”

“Nngh—I don’t want to spend the holiday at another estate sale, Eugene! With _her!_ ” 

“Not to mention _Calliope._ ”

“ _Not_ helping.” 

The alternative of letting Rosalia Morcant snap up another spellbook for her collection is… tempting, but if the past two years of custodianship over the Library have taught him _anything,_ it’s that occult books in private collections are a disaster lying in wait. They’ll laze around basking in their own arcane energies without a care in the world as long as they’re given the proper care—but then the owner dies or the house burns down or some fresh-faced new librarian comes in and starts rearranging the shelves and all _hell_ breaks loose. Sometimes literally. 

Being magical itself, the Library can handle that. It has reinforced vaults strong enough to contain even the foulest of literary tantrums. It gobbles up curses for breakfast and eats hexes for lunch. Varian’s first encounter with a grimoire had involved watching in fascination while the Library chewed its way through a half-dozen spidery maledictions in under a minute; the dizzy whorls of magic devouring magic had given him a _killer_ migraine. He’d been out of commission for two days, after.

_Yeesh._

And he’d been _so_ looking forward to his nice, quiet weekend, too. By himself. Alone. Just him, Ruddiger, and the gorgeous set of new glassware the other three had gotten him in their cheerful, ongoing confusion over how Sun-Eater’s Night is celebrated. Nice and cozy in the lab, whipping up hot chocolate and fun but stupid chemistry experiments while the vicious spirits of midwinter rampaged their way through the longest night of the year. 

Good old holiday fun. 

“Whelp,” he sighs. “’Tis the season.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Corona has more than its fair share of holidays, but Sun-Eater’s Night has always been one of his favorites. It’s not flashy or loud. There are no gophers to chase, no bright banners, no feasts and no big festivals. When he was small, Dad would let him stay up past his bedtime; they’d huddle together under a blanket in front of the hearth, and Dad would tell The Story.

_Long, long ago, there lived a wicked sorceress named Zhan Tiri, who despised Corona with all her heart. One day, she tried to bury the kingdom in snow…_

He liked the way Dad told it. Zhan Tiri made a bargain with a horde of evil spirits, denizens of a realm locked in eternal winter. She brought them into this world and unleashed them upon the kingdom of Corona, and they raised up a fearsome blizzard. All would have been lost had not clever Lord Demanitus—who, in Dad’s telling, was always a slight, dark-haired, curious fellow with a pale streak in his hair, an indulgence that had seemed like a coincidence bordering on _fate_ then, and brings a nostalgic grin to his face when he thinks of it now—devised a machine to trap the spirits before their storms could destroy Corona forever. Zhan Tiri fled with her plans in tatters, and the sun had risen at last.

_But._

_Once every year, when the night is long and the sun ponders whether to return from her rest, the angriest of those spirits can slip free. So bank the fires high and stuff your ears with cotton, or else the wild songs of the midwinter spirits will lure you out into their cold, dark revelries…_

Having gotten up close and personal with the _real_ Zhan Tiri six years ago hasn’t dampened Varian’s enjoyment of the holiday one bit. If anything, he appreciates it _more_ now. Evil spirits, ancient sorceresses, sure—but the sun always rises, in the end, and the year takes its first lurching step towards the spring. Memories of the strange warmth of softening amber pile up against his nightmares of fighting through drifts of snow as tall as he was, and the purifying _joy_ of getting his Dad back wins. 

Bad things end.

When he had tried to explain all of this to Hugo, Nuru, and Yong four years ago, they’d all looked at him like he’d grown a second head. Hugo had snorted. Yong had said, “ _Whoa._ So it’s like Yn Nos, but spooky?” Nuru had remarked dryly on the departure from the usual Coronan theme of, as she put it, “something great happened, let’s throw a _bi-i-ig_ party!” 

“What’s Yn Nos?” Varian had asked, baffled.

They’d told him. He hadn’t quite believed them. 

Until… now. 

Varian stands in the great hall of the palace in Tarazed trying, and failing, to pick his jaw up off the floor. 

Light. 

Light, _everywhere._

Garlands of little mirrors catch the sunlight streaming through the high windows and then bounce it back and forth, flooding the space with _light_. Glass prisms dangle from the ceiling and scatter sunbeams into flecks of color, painting rainbows over the floor. Glowing baubles of golden light shine from silver basins set at regular intervals against the wall. Each one illuminates a sky-blue banner embroidered with golden stars, familiar constellations: the Eagle, the Peacock, the Vulture, the Nine Songbirds, the Loom and the Sickle, the Dancing Maidens. 

He’s seen the palace before. Even on a bad day, the great hall is airy and bright, and the tessellated white-blue-gold floors shine like gemstones in the sun. 

But _this_ is… something else.

“Varian!!” 

Nuru’s delighted squeal hits him only a second before Nuru herself, and for a moment his arms are too full of excited princess to think about anything else. Varian whoops, swings her around, sets her back on her feet, and chirps, “Surprise!” 

“You’re _here!_ Why didn’t you say you were coming?”

“Well it wouldn’t have been a surprise, then.”

She swats at him, beaming. “I would’ve had a room prepared! You’re a few days too early, you know, if you’re here for Yn Nos.”

“I’m not. Guess who wrote us a letter.”

Nuru _gasps._ “Oh, she did _not!_ ” 

“Oh, she so did.”

“Let me _see!_ ” 

The letter’s already in his hand; Nuru grabs it with undisguised glee, bobbing on her toes as she reads. Then she cackles. “ _Ghorskeyn?_ She wants us to go pilfer _Simon Ghorskeyn’s_ estate?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

Nuru gives him one of the sharp-edged, _feral_ grins he’s come to recognize as an omen of mortal danger in his immediate future. “This is going to be so much _fun!_ ” 

“Oh _no._ ”

“Come on, Yong’s in the sunset garden. He’s going to have a _fit!_ ” 

“ _Nuru—!_ ” 

Laughing, she seizes him by the wrist and dashes up the great hall with Varian bouncing along after her: like a clumsy giraffe galumphing in the wake of a racehorse. He stays on his feet with a hop and a skip and a nervous, bubbling chuckle of his own.

“— _how high on the doom scale are we talking here?!_ ”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

“Seven,” Nuru says, a few hours later. “ _Maaaybe_ seven and a half.”

“Is that better or worse than those creepy bug people who tried to eat us in Goscea?” Yong asks. He’s grown another inch or two since Varian saw him last, a few months ago. His feet scuff the deck of the dirigible when he swings them now. “What was that, a six?”

“Eight. You’re thinking of the Tirapian Firefly.”

Yong scrunches up his face. “He wasn’t a _six!_ ”

“Yong, our _balloon caught fire._ ” 

“While we were _in it,_ ” Varian adds.

“Yeah, yeah. The Firefly was, like, a four at worst. I set stuff on fire all the time—” 

“Which makes _you_ a six on the doom scale,” Nuru deadpans. It fractures into a giggle. “Don’t worry, Yong, Varian’s a _nine._ ”

“Hey–!”

Nuru ducks his playful shove, mirth sparkling in her eyes. “Just keep your eye on the sky, Captain. If you hit another eagle I’ll have no choice but to raise you to a ten.”

“That was _one time!_ And he was _fine!_ ” 

“Yes, but he was so confused, the poor dear. Let’s not make a habit of terrorizing Tarazed’s national bird.”

Varian harrumphs. “I think I’m a three. Maybe a four. I’m just a guy with a raccoon and I’m _significantly_ less explosive than Yong.”

“Hey, now. It’s been twenty-three days since the last incident! That’s almost a whole month!” 

“Okay, _fire boy._ ” 

“And… _how_ many automatons did you build when you tried to topple the Coronan monarchy?” Nuru asks, folding her chin under her hands with a sweet, sweet smile.

“O _kay_ —” 

“Eleven? Twelve?”

“—listen—” 

“Yes?”

Varian lifts his chin and, in the loftiest, most dignified tone he can muster, says, “It was fourteen, _actually._ Plus the, uh, plus the mechanical suit.” 

A lot of treason. All the treason. _So much_ treason. 

He coughs. “So I had a troubled youth! Since then I have uh, stepped _way_ down on the doom scale, thank you, and now—”

“Nine,” Nuru says serenely. “Firmly— _firmly_ —a nine.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

They find Hugo ankle-deep in paperwork. It drifts over his desk and spills onto the floor, grey as the mucky snow coating the streets of Azoth. His tongue protrudes between his teeth as he sifts through it, pen at the ready and a wicked gleam in his eye. 

“Yes I slept,” Hugo hums as the three of them troop into the study. “Yes I ate breakfast, _no_ I do not need a break— _oh!_ Hey, gang.”

“Yeah, hi,” Nuru chirps. “We’ve come to rescue you. Or kidnap, I’m not particular. What _are_ you working on?”

“Financial records.” Hugo tosses his pen down and stretches, groaning. “Cyrus finally tracked down where the accountants at Schtemmich and Sons stashed ’em; Don’s been having a _field_ day. D’you know they’ve got holdings in _Ingvarran iron?_ That’s how they cut all their competition into the ground, the self-dealing pack of _assholes_ —”

“I…did not know that,” Nuru says. 

Varian exchanges a wry glance with Yong behind her back. For about a year after they stabilized the entrance to the Library, he’d worried Hugo might just bounce. He’d been rattling around with nothing to do but open doors and see where they led _this_ time, and more than once he’d slouched his way into Varian’s room late at night to fret about not knowing what to _do_ with himself now that the job was done and he’d sworn off thieving for good. Sure, there had been their budding… adversarial alliance _thing_ with Rosalia Morcant, but that didn’t break up the day to day monotony so much as punctuate it with brief moments of spine-chilling terror. The Library more or less looked after itself, and puttering in a lab on slow days didn’t cut it for Hugo like it does for Varian. 

So he was _bored._

Then Donella had gotten into Rapunzel’s ear about poverty in Azoth, and Rapunzel had thrown Corona’s considerable international weight behind a big push for serious reform, and there’d been talk of committees and redistribution and trimming down of the behemothic companies that had kept the city-state in a stranglehold for decades—and Donella clawed her way to the top of the new coalition because _of course she did,_ and Hugo… 

Hugo discovered _paperwork_. 

“—just sell it off, probably,” Hugo is saying happily to Nuru, who’s looking harried. “Bastards. But it’ll depend what else we find; if we turn up any links to the Ganwick Cartel the antitrust hearing’s gonna be _vicious._ Blood in the damn _water_. I can’t wait to see Hamish cry.”

“Right, right. What’s the saying about counting chickens?”

Hugo rolls his eyes. “Hey, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s gonna hatch… into a duck. Chickens are a whole other kettle of fish.”

“I am _once again_ revoking your idiom license—”

“Hamish Schtemmich can go duck himself,” Hugo says blithely. Nuru splutters. “That’s all I’m sayin’. Now what—” With a loud scraping sound, he shoves his chair away from the desk and slides onto his feet, grinning. “—am I being rescued _for?_ ”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

The first time they encountered Rosalia Morcant, they’d been poking around Lavuil, the precipitous and icy capital of Quintonia. Sandwiched between Ingvarr and Seland in the Silberbast Mountains, the duchy had been on their short list of candidates for the “Kingdom of Earth” referenced in Ulla’s notes, and they had been hoping to find the earth trial there.

Instead, they found the Duchess. 

She was friendly. She was _helpful._ As soon as the words “Eternal Library” left Nuru’s lips, Rosalia insisted on their coming to visit _her_ library _,_ and without her advice and near-encyclopedic knowledge of esoteric lore, it might’ve taken them another _year_ to identify the Volkane province of Terrene as the earth trial’s true location. 

A little over a year later, they bumped into her again at a rare book auction in Koto. Nuru drew her into a bidding war over a collection of occult texts dating back to the middle of the Shattered Era, and though Rosalia won in the end, she had made one thing _very_ clear, afterwards.

Anyone getting between Rosalia Morcant and a book she’s decided is _hers_ has a big storm coming.

So… the Duchess is their friend, but any situation where they might become an obstacle in her insatiable hunt for new reading material is an automatic five on the doom scale, as codified by Nuru: non-zero risk that someone gets cursed. 

All of this runs through Varian’s mind as he brings the dirigible down next to the dilapidated docks of Cardon and sees the familiar black-clad figure waiting for them on the beach. Rosalia Morcant is not, by appearance, an intimidating person. She’s a small, slight, morose-looking woman with a wispy smile and the severe sort of fashion sense that would not look out of place on a strict governess three times her age; when they pile out of the dirigible, she cocks her head and watches them like a bird might watch a procession of beetles. 

“Your Highness. Gentlemen,” she says. “Always a pleasure.”

This kicks off the usual round of pleasantries—Nuru curtsies, Yong bows, Hugo offers up an irreverent, “Hey, Your Grace”—and then, still smiling, Rosalia says, “I _am_ glad you came. I trust the flight was uneventful.”

“It was fine, ma’am,” Varian says.

“I took the liberty of booking your lodgings.” Rosalia gestures for them to follow her up the beach, toward the village proper. “The inn is in poor shape, I’m afraid. I would recommend against sampling the local brew.”

Cardon nestles into the cleft where a rocky bluff curves down to meet the sea. It’s a small village, half-swallowed by creeping forests on one side and dribbling down to the beach in clusters of careworn grey shacks on the other. It waits for them, silent and sullen in the gloaming, soaked in a kind of exhausted hostility. Varian catches more than a few shutters snapping closed as they pass. 

“Seems friendly,” he mutters.

“I gather they have a rather pernicious bandit problem,” Rosalia says. “Shame, isn’t it? You can imagine the distrust it breeds for outsiders.”

She meanders through a few other tidbits of local gossip as she leads them to the sad, frozen spit of the village green. There’s a crumbling well in the middle, a handful of houses slumped inwards with neglect, an old smithy with its roof caved in and the forges all caked in ice—and the inn.

 _“Poor shape”_ is, Varian thinks, one of those dire understatements Rosalia makes whenever she’s trying to be polite. It lists against the less-decrepit end of the smithy with nothing but the weak candle-light leaking through the boarded-up windows for proof that it isn’t abandoned, too. The thatched roof is balding. The facade is sagging and grey beneath a scummy coating of grime. It’s a building with two feet in the grave and a coffin on the way.

Inside, Rosalia directs them to a corner booth. They cram in, Nuru radiating appalled silence and Hugo watching the other patrons in the sharply _attentive_ way he has; Yong, ever the optimist, scoops up the grubby menu and says, “Ooh, fried scallops!”

“I’ve made arrangements to meet with Lady Ghorskeyn tomorrow morning to go over the details of the estate,” Rosalia says, delicately flicking a cockroach off the end of the table. “When we spoke last she had yet to finish a full inventory of her late uncle’s collection. He was—” her mouth tightens into a hard line “—not a forthcoming man.”

“Did you know him?” Hugo asks.

“Not really, no. We only spoke once or twice. But I’ve had several… less than pleasant encounters with Mr. Bellecote, his secretary, at antiques houses and so forth. He’s an odd little man. Nervous. _Giggly._ ” She sniffs. “In any case, you’re all welcome to join us at the manor for breakfast. No doubt Calliope will invite herself along, too—” 

They share a collective groan; Rosalia’s lips twitch, though she stops short of a smile.

“—it’s a bit of a walk from the village. Further south, up on the bluff; you’ll see it come morning. It’s… difficult to miss.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

“So.” Hugo flops onto Varian’s bed with a grunt, tucking his arms behind his head. “What’s the plan?”

After an uninspiring dinner of tasteless scallops and even blander cod, they’d retired to the rooms Rosalia rented for them, done a cursory check for traps out of an excess of caution, and then gathered in Varian’s to debrief. Yong and Nuru perch on the splintering dresser together with the contents of Yong’s kit of tricks spread out between them; Varian paces in the scant space between the bed and the window.

“Breakfast with Lady Ghorskeyn tomorrow,” Varian mutters. “Figure out which books Rosalia’s after, then if they’re worth fighting her on—I _do_ want that grimoire, at the least. And anything else that seems… volatile.”

Nuru had, during the six hour flight from Azoth to Cardon, shared some of the rumors surrounding Simon Ghorskeyn’s life and research. It started with grotesque experiments on the local wildlife and just got worse and worse from there. Smuggling. Curses. Nasty occult rituals. Blood sacrifice. Alchemical experiments and dealings with demons that had left him… not quite human anymore, and certainly not _sane._

Seven on the doom scale indeed.

“If things go south,” he adds, “me and Nuru will do damage control while Hugo and Yong get any bystanders out of the way—yes, Hugo, that _includes_ Calliope.”

Hugo, grimacing, shuts his mouth.

“And, um, then we pack up and skedaddle. Easy-peasy.”

“Every time you say something will be ‘easy-peasy’ we end up almost dying,” Yong says absently. He runs the long fuse of a firework between his thumb and forefinger, grinning. “You’ve just doomed us all.”

“Ha- _ha._ ”

“Once we’re done here, you guys should come back to Tarazed with us. Yong’s been helping me put together the Yn Nos festivities—it’s going to be _awesome._ ” 

“I could do with a party,” Hugo says. 

They all turn to look at him. Varian blinks. He didn’t _set out_ to avoid celebrating Yn Nos with them, but in the last four years there’s always been _something:_ their first midwinter together, they’d been caught out by a blizzard in Terrene and spent the night swapping stories and huddled up for warmth in a cave; the next year, midwinter found them slogging their way through the trial of darkness in Aphelion. And last year, they’d spent Sun-Eater’s Night in Corona with him and Dad instead. 

So, _this_ year…

“Sure,” he says. “Sounds fun.”


	2. Chapter 2: Shadows and Ink

###  **Chapter Two** **◆** **_Shadows and Ink_**

Ghorskeyn Manor is ugly. _Hideous,_ really. Dark as charcoal against the ruddy sunrise. A sprawl of wood and glass with a roof of dentate peaks and wrought-iron spires. It gapes like an open maw at the peak of the bluff, bracketed by skeletal trees and thick scabs of ice. 

It’s difficult to miss, that’s for sure.

“It looks like a demon threw up all over it,” Yong whispers.

“For all we know, one _did,_ ” Nuru mutters back as they crowd onto the stoop. Hugo chuckles. Varian, frowning at the door-knocker, does not. 

It’s some sort of… pig… _Thing._ Rust crawls over its snarling iron face. Tiny red gemstones glitter in the sockets of its _too_ _many_ eyes, and the knocker itself is a bristling mass of- of _teeth_ fused together into a single grotesque loop hung between two long tusks. 

_Gck. Just, why??_

It makes the back of his neck _itch._ He’s steeling himself to pick up the knocker when the door opens with a horrible shriek of careworn hinges, and—

“Gah!” 

Fever-bright eyes. Stringy, dirty grey hair. The wrinkled slash of a mouth, stretched in a wide, wide smile over crooked teeth. An old man’s face, desiccated and sallow, peers through the crack in the door.

The fellow giggles. It sounds like a cracked glass. “Oh. Oho, yes, the– the _Librarians._ Do… come in, _come in._ ” 

He drags the door fully open, making agitated, fluttering motions for them to enter the drab vestibule. 

“You’re expected, of course,” he says in a quick, rasping mutter. “Her Grace said—come _in!–_ don’t be shy, now—yes, that’s it, _haha—_ welcome, welcome! Follow me.”

Varian trades glances with Hugo, who shrugs, and the four of them follow their… peculiar host into the shadows of the manor house. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

As they shuffle hurriedly down a dusty hallway, he introduces himself as Mr. Bellecote: caretaker for the estate, and former secretary to the late Lord Ghorskeyn. He does not seem much inclined to talk besides that, though he mumbles a constant stream of half-thoughts under his breath as he hobbles along, now and then breaking into his snorting, fractured laugh.

_Weirdo._ Probably harmless, but a weirdo.

Bellecote leads them to a sad little parlor. All the furniture is upholstered in threadbare, bruise-purple velvet. An elderly davenport wobbles against the wall across from the door, and Rosalia is leaning against it when they file in, with a scone in her hand and an expression of bored indulgence on her face. Pacing back and forth in front of the hearth, incongruous in her white-and-gold robes, is Calliope. 

“—if the Viridian Shroud of Carthamine _did_ fall into Lord Ghorskeyn’s possession, we-ell—” Calliope adjusts her spectacles with a noisy sniff “—let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past _him_ to leave a _priceless_ historical artifact moldering in a closet somewhere—” 

“Tragic,” Rosalia drawls.

“I _know!_ Some _people!_ Imagine just—” 

“Go-ood _morning!_ ” Varian cries, before she can build up too much steam. Rosalia, smiling wryly, lifts her free hand in a lazy wave; Calliope swings around to beam at them all.

“Hell _ooo!_ Are you here for the auction?”

“Rosalia invited us,” Nuru says. 

“Of course she did.”

Hugo clears his throat. “Where’s the lady of the house?”

“Lady Ghorskeyn has taken ill,” Rosalia says, with a flickering glance toward Mr. Bellecote, “evidently.”

“Yes, yes, regrettable—terrible. Ah, ah–” Mumbling, Bellecote slinks to the sideboard across from the hearth, where there’s a tarnished silver tray laden with tea things and scones. “Terrible! Really– tea? Some nice, _haha,_ nice bergamot tea? Sugar? Lemon. Cream?”

“I’ll take some tea.” Hugo flops into one of the careworn armchairs facing the hearth, hooking an ankle over his knee, and whistles. “Taken ill, huh? She alright?”

“Her Ladyship is, ah– _ahh_ … afflicted with weak constitution. Fragile. Melancholic. She is not feeling… quite herself, today.” The tea things clatter. Varian crosses his arms, slouching against the back of Hugo’s seat, and—

Rosalia is _staring_ at him. 

As his gaze meets hers, she tilts her chin toward Bellecote and, very slightly, shakes her head. 

_Oh no._

“Just a little _rest,_ ” Bellecote continues. “Sugar, young man? Lemmm…on? We have a great many– His Lordship was _very_ fond of le—” 

“No thank you,” Hugo says. 

Nuru wanders over to the sideboard to help herself to a scone or three; Yong sidles closer to the puddle of reddish fur where Calliope’s kurloc is dozing in front of the hearth and crouches down to scratch him behind the ears, whispering, “ _Buddy!_ You’re getting so _big!_ ” 

The kurloc whines happily. Calliope, always glad of an audience, leaps into a droning monologue on the proper care and keeping of young kurlocs. And Varian—

Varian frowns at Rosalia, who has become intensely interested in picking the raisins off the top of her scone.

The gears in his brain _click_ and whir into motion.

_Something’s wrong. She doesn’t trust Mr. Bellecote._

_She invited us here, which she wouldn’t’ve done unless she expected real trouble—it’s_ always _something, with her—but now something’s gone wrong worse than she expected, and she’s worried._

Rosalia worrying is a really _bad_ sign. 

_So what happened to Vivienne Ghorskeyn?_

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Breakfast is… awkward. Stilted. Calliope rattles on while the rest of them nibble on scones. Once enough time has crawled by for it to be _weird,_ Bellecote rouses himself from his mumbling to ask whether they’d all like a tour of the manor. 

“ _I_ would,” Rosalia says, with a pointed glance at Varian. He nods. _She’s the distraction. Great._ “Calliope?”

“Count us in!” 

While the others follow out of the parlor—along with Buddy, who sticks to Calliope’s shoulder like a large fluffy shadow—Varian plucks at Hugo’s elbow, drawing him to the very back of the group. Hugo lifts an eyebrow, and Varian lifts his left hand.

Hardly a day goes by when he isn’t grateful for the thief-sign Hugo taught them all during their long quest for the Library. With a few personal additions to account for some of the more… _esoteric_ problems they encounter in their new line of work, it’s saved them a whole mountain of trouble over the last few years.

His fingers flick through the air. _“Weird feeling. We split up.”_

Another eyebrow joins the first in the climb toward Hugo’s hairline. _“Where?”_

_“You take Yong. Find Library. Nuru and me find Lady. Then find you. Careful of HIM.”_ He jerks his chin at Bellecote, and Hugo, frowning, follows his gaze. 

His expression hardens. He nods. _“Now?”_

_“Now.”_

As if she senses the thrust of their silent conversation, Rosalia leans closer to Bellecote, twining her arm around his, and purrs, “You know, Calliope was _just_ saying to me that she wanted a look at the sculpture garden. I’ve heard it’s rather… macabre. Won’t you show us?”

“Oh– oho, c- certainly, certain—right this way, Your Grace…”

Varian taps Nuru’s shoulder and, when she turns, signs, _“Follow me.”_

Mischievous glee kindles in her eyes. She darts a glance over her shoulder at Bellecote, grins, and then ducks around the corner after him. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

“So what’s up?” Yong asks, once they’ve gotten clear.

Hugo pokes his head around another corner, scanning the gloom for anything that looks like it might lead to a library. All the doors look the _same:_ dreary, dark wood with tarnished brass knobs. “Varian smells a rat,” he murmurs. “Help me find the library. This place is a _maze_.” 

A _creepy_ maze. If Bellecote really is the caretaker for the place, he’s done a piss-poor job. Dust and cobwebs choke the old paneled walls. The deeper they go, the more mildewed and sad the furniture in each room becomes. Grimy portraits line the hallways—men and women with hollow faces done in faded oils, with vacant staring eyes and rictus grins or grimaces that bespeak some silent anguish—all draped in grey neglect. 

They find a room in it with nothing in it but a stained rug and a hulking statue of a boar or… pig or something with too many eyes and twice as many limbs. Another that reeks so powerfully of formaldehyde that even Hugo, whose sense of smell was deadened by growing up in the stinking streets of Azoth, gags before they slam the door shut again. They find a concerning number of skeletons strung together with scraps of decaying leather in the closets—Yong just rolls his eyes when Hugo makes the obvious joke—and cauldrons full of foul, congealing masses of half-finished potions. They find bedrooms carpeted in dust _inches_ thick.

And after over an hour of fruitless searching, they find the library.

“…Woah,” Yong says.

“ _Woah._ Yeah.”

It doesn’t belong in Ghorskeyn Manor. Tall mahogany bookshelves line every inch of wall, save where the stone hearth protrudes between them. A fire crackles in the grate, filling the room with rosy light and warmth. Leather armchairs scatter the room, orbited by a flotilla of little side-tables and lamps, all well-used but well- _kept._

Signs of auction prep are everywhere: books pulled from their shelves and stacked haphazardly around the room, or packed into crates stamped with inventory lists. An enormous ledger lies open on one of the larger tables, and Hugo ventures over it to sift through the pages. Paperwork.

“Heh.”

“What is it?”

“Inventory of all the books like the Duchess wanted,” he says. “…Some of this stuff, yeesh…”

“Oh, _man!_ He had a complete set of the Epistles of Tribbarc!” Yong gasps. When Hugo looks, the kid’s crouched in front of one of the not-yet-empty bookcases. “And Sorchā’s _Epiphanies_ in about– eight different languages, including the original Saporian! Ooh, and the Ctorbruan Dialogues—!” 

“All that on one shelf?”

“Uh-huh. _Hah_ —no wonder the inventory’s taking so long! This place is a mess. But oh, _man,_ no wonder Her Grace wants to get her hands on a piece of this…” Snickering, Yong begins to work his way down the shelves, and Hugo shakes his head.

Then he turns his attention back to the ledger.

Occult tomes aren’t exactly in his wheelhouse. He’s more of a mechanical guy. Give him a sheet of blueprints or a treatise on the submersible boats of Minkar any day of the week. But in the past couple years he’s gleaned enough from Yong and Nuru to recognize _a lot_ of titles the Duchess would happily stab someone to get her hands on.

…Granted, she’d happily stab someone to get her hands on a damn _cookbook_ if she’d set her mind on having it, but that isn’t the point. Big overlap between her tastes in literature and that of the late Lord Ghorskeyn. Hugo reflects wryly that this begs the question of why they’re _friends_ with this woman.

Well. Not friends so much as _competition._

“Friends close, enemies closer,” he mutters, rolling his eyes.

“What was that?”

“Nothin’. Talking to myself.”

He’s a quarter of the way through the ledger when Yong’s excited mumbling goes quiet; then, after a moment of tight silence that makes Hugo tense and stop reading, Yong says, “Hugo. Come look at this.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Nuru taps her cheek thoughtfully once he finishes his explanation. “Okay. Then… we follow the places where the dust _isn’t._ ” 

And that is… sounder than his own plan of knocking on doors at random until someone answers. Varian grins. “Smart. What’d we do without you?”

“Oh, you’d be fine,” Nuru says breezily. “You’d get everything done in about twice the time and in the most deranged way possible, but you’d manage.” 

“Heh. Appreciate the vote of confidence, but I don’t think _you’re_ one to judge about doing things the deranged way, Princess If-It’s-Not-At-Least-A-Six-I’m-Not-Interested.”

“A girl needs her hobbies!”

“I don’t think chasing doom qualifies as a hobby.”

“Please, doom finds _me._ I just enjoy it.”

The trail of cleanliness leads them, in a roundabout way, to the grand staircase, and then up. A mezzanine wraps the upper floor, polished wood gleaming darkly in the slivers of sunlight bleeding through the curtains. Two corridors lead away into the second level of the house: one entrance draped so thickly in cobwebs that Varian can’t make out what’s on the other side, and the other merely dusty.

“No _wonder_ the Ghorskeyns are sickly,” Nuru mutters, as they head down the less grimy option. “Living in filth like– look, there’s _mold,_ on the paneling, there.”

“Gross.”

“Do they _want_ lung disease? This is how you get lung disease!” She heaves a sigh. “I guess when you’re meddling with demons and such, respiratory health isn’t going to be high on your list of concerns, is it? _Tch._ But that’s wizards for you. _Poor_ Lady Vivienne, though. I do hope she’s alright. What do you suppose hap—” 

“ _Shh._ ”

She stops. Glances at him with wide, startled eyes, then follows his gaze to the end of the hall.

The shadows… _twitch._ They wriggle like worms in the mud after rain. Mucky, drowning movements. Darkness _oozes_ down the wall and pools on the floorboards. Thick. Black. Sort of wet-looking.

And squirming closer. 

_Fuck._

Varian grabs her wrist, picks a door at random—wincing when it creaks as he shoves it open—and sweeps both of them inside. They ease the door shut and lean against it, staring wild-eyed at each other.

“Demon?” Nuru mouths.

Wouldn’t be the first. Zhan Tiri. And the _thing_ in the crypts at Kaitos. Neither one is an experience Varian is keen to repeat. Ever. He presses his shoulder into the door, grimacing.

_It’s definitely not a ghost. Might be a wraith like the one we found in Aphelion. Demon? Maybe, but a smaller one._

_Does Bellecote know it’s here?_

Outside, there’s a quiet _scritch, scritch._ Dripping, _scraping._ Coming closer. Varian skims his fingertips over the bandolier of vials strapped under his coat. Five sticky bombs, six flash grenades, several packets of salt and iron filings— _one_ run-in with elves had been _enough,_ thank you—and three actual bombs in case things get even dicier than usual.

_Shadows. Light._

He slips one of the flash grenades free and grips it hard. Nuru already has a fistful of her rune-beads clutched in one hand. Pale yellow light sparks off her fingertips as she traces the sigil that will ignite them when she casts the beads away.

She grins. Varian grimaces.

They listen.

Whatever the creature is, it scratches gently at the door. There’s a black, bubbling _gurgle_ —

And then it moves on.

The sounds of its passage fade, little by little. His heart thumps like a drum in his chest for several minutes, after, but the _thing_ does not return. 

Sighing, Varian slots the flash grenade back into his bandolier. Nuru flicks her fingers to disarm the beads, looking profoundly disappointed.

“We’ll go monster-hunting _later,_ Nuru,” Varian mutters. She sticks out her tongue at him before swiveling around to examine their hiding place. He follows suit, and blinks.

It’s a bedroom.

A very clean, very lived-in, but very _empty_ bedroom.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

The book rests on a lectern in the corner. Huge. Moldering. Bound in leather. Its pages are blank but yellowing.

Yong is giving it the wall-eyed look someone might give a snarling, feral dog encountered in an alleyway; Hugo leans past him to poke it.

“What… is it.”

“Check the bookplate.”

Puzzled, Hugo does so, rolling his eyes when Yong crowds up behind him to peek over his shoulder. As if Hugo, raw-boned and scrawny as he is, could provide the shorter but stouter kid with _any_ shelter if something blows up.

He flips to the front cover. He reads the bookplate. He stares.

“…This… is Simon Ghorskeyn’s personal grimoire,” he says, as he slowly, cautiously pulls his hand away.

“I _thought_ so,” Yong breathes. “I _swear_ I saw it move—” 

They both take a step back. Then a few more, until Hugo bumps into the bookcase behind them. He rubs the spot on his wrist where the curse on those _stupid_ letters had seared half the sigils of a death-hex into his skin before Nuru squashed the damn thing. 

“ _Huh,_ ” he says.

And Yong, rubbing his jaw in bafflement, asks the question they’re both thinking. “Why the hell is it _empty?_ ” 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

“This is—or was? Lady Vivienne’s room,” Nuru announces, two minutes into their careful investigation. She straightens up from the desk, brandishing a handful of papers. “These are Rosalia’s letters to her. They’ve been writing _a lot,_ looks like.”

Varian, who has been checking behind the frames of the grubby oil paintings adorning the walls, lets the portrait of a scowling young woman _thunk_ back into place. “She’s got such _weird_ friends.”

“Including us,” Nuru says dryly, passing the letters to him.

“Hn. Touché.”

While she bends down to resume her rifling, Varian sifts through the letters, curious but wary of stumbling into a too-personal secret or something awkwardly _private_ —but they’re much the same as the letters Rosalia writes to _them:_ dry, airy, personable without ever straying far from the subject at hand, which is always, _always_ books. 

Nothing helpful. He’s on the point of tossing them all onto the desk when he hears the cough.

Quiet. Dry. Varian goes very still, and Nuru freezes with her hands still deep in Lady Ghorskeyn’s desk drawers. Calmly, she whispers, “If she’s _actually_ just sick I’m going to thump you.”

“…Yeah, that’s. That’s fair.”

The bed is still empty when they turn around. Neither of the armchairs by the window are occupied. The cough sounds again, muffled.

“Hello?” Nuru calls.

There’s a squeak of hinges. The closet door opens a few inches, and a hoarse, quavering voice answers, “H- hello?”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Lady Vivienne Ghorskeyn is not the sickly waif Varian has been imagining. She’s built like a cart-horse. Towering and sturdy, with a long, handsome face and a hatchet of a jaw. Her face does have an unhealthy, pallid tinge to it, but that’s nothing against the shock of seeing her fold herself out of her closet. She’s wearing a ratty green dressing gown, and cradles a crossbow in her hands.

_Oh, stars above,_ Varian thinks. If Hugo were here he’d already be gliding forward with a ridiculous story rolling off his tongue and somehow that would _work,_ because he’s _Hugo._

Hugo is not here. 

“Ah– ahhhh… this—this uh, this really isn’t what it looks like!”

“We’re _so_ sorry, milady, we—” 

“Monster’s gone,” Lady Ghorskeyn says, in a low, rough voice. “Yeah?”

“…Um.”

She seems to take their shuffling, mortified silence as confirmation and, nodding, hefts her crossbow. “Alrighty then,” she says. “Time’s a wastin’. Let’s get hunting.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

“Call me Vivienne,” she says, as she shepherds the bewildered pair of them out of her bedroom. “Not really the ‘milady’ type. Uncle Simon squandered the family money and any of us with any _sense_ packed up and left a long time ago. Long before I came along. Horrible old bastard. Ones who stayed all died. Last three times _he_ kicked it, his heirs dropped like flies and then, few months later he’d pop up again. This time… _well_.”

She pats the crossbow, grinning a very _Nuru-ish_ grin.

Nuru says, “Mr. Bellecote said you were, um. Ill.”

“Hmph. Funny old man, isn’t he? Come along.”

They jog in her wake as she sweeps back down to the grand floor, striding through the manor with an _intent_ that makes Varian a little uneasy. Every shadow seems to flicker as they path. The cobwebs… shiver, like they’re caught in a draft. 

“La- Lady—um, Vivienne?” he asks.

“Mm?”

“Where are we headed?” 

“Library,” she says.

“…And… what was that _thing_ in the hallway?”

She blinks down at him. Her mousy hair falls in wisps around her face, unkempt and wild. She looks, in the dim candlelight, a few steps shy of human. Something about the way the light doesn’t catch her strangely flat, black eyes like it should—

“Library,” she says, again. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

When they enter the—very _normal_ —library, the first thing Varian sees is Yong and Hugo with their heads bent together over a table, whispering fiercely. Both of them bolt upright at the sound of the door banging open, and Hugo says, “Varian, we found—” 

He breaks off when he sees Vivienne. His eyes track down from her grin to her crossbow, and he shuts his mouth with a _click._

“There’s more of you!” Vivienne rasps.

Varian shuffles over to join Hugo and Yong as he makes introductions, with Nuru trailing at his heels; Vivienne just paces in front of the door, looking preoccupied. 

“So you’re not sick,” Hugo says slowly.

“ _Hmph._ No, no, not exactly.”

“What does that…mean.”

“We saw this thing upstairs,” Varian says. “It—” 

Vivienne halts abruptly, looking sideways at him. Her grin slants into a sharp little smirk, and it occurs to Varian with a slow trickle of ice into his gut that she has a crossbow, and she’s standing between them and the only exit. 

_Oh, dear._

“What… exactly _was_ it, Lady Ghorskeyn?” he asks. 

_Scritch. Scritch._

“Told you,” she says, running her thumb along the crossbow’s shaft. “Hunt’s on. Time—” her teeth gleam in the firelight “—is running out. For me. For you. For all of us. No—” 

The crossbow swings out. Through the ringing in his ears, Varian hears Hugo make a sharp, worried noise in his ear. The steel tip of the bolt glitters, pointed squarely at his brow.

“—don’t move.”

“Her shadow,” Nuru breathes. “ _Look at her shadow._ ”

“Lady Ghorskeyn—” 

Vivienne’s shadow _bubbles_ around the edges.

_Scritch. Scritch._ Like the squeak of a quill against parchment.

She chuckles. Her shadow flows out of her dressing gown, rippling as it spreads and thickening into a frothing black liquid. 

Ink.

Varian takes a step back, sucking in his breath when his back hits the table. Hugo swears, and Yong gasps, “ _The grimoire!_ ”

“ _My_ grimoire,” Vivienne says, with a pleased smile. 

She lifts one hand off the crossbow to snap her fingers.

And all hell breaks loose. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Books explode out of crates in flurries of splintered wood and torn paper and scattering ink. They come screaming off their shelves and hammer down—Varian ducks under a weighty encyclopedia that flies at his head, hears the _thwunk!_ of the crossbow bolt slamming into the table behind him, and yelps, “Ten! _Ten on the doom scale!_ ”

“Containment!” Nuru screams to his right. “Yong—fire! Hugo—get us an exit plan! Varian—sticky bomb _now!_ ” 

He can’t see Vivienne anymore; the lady of the manor has vanished in a writhing vortex of pages and ink and shadow. But the laughter roaring out of the mess tells him she’s still in there, so he tears a sticky bomb from his bandolier and lobs it overhand—pink goo splatters the paper—

Slick tendrils of ink roll up and lash at his face in retaliation. Varian scrambles back on his hands and knees—

Rune-beads clatter onto the floorboard in front of his toes. A scrim of yellow light rears up to catch the blow and Nuru is _there,_ hauling him to his feet. 

“— _insolent_ children _cannot stop me_ _from_ —” 

Ink hammers against Nuru’s shield, which wavers and begins to crack; Nuru shoves at him, shouting, “Go– _go!_ ” 

“— _burn my body!”_ the thing that was Lady Ghorskeyn shrieks. “ _Salt the earth! Bleed for all I care! I have drunk the terrible secrets of the cosmos and I will never_ —” 

Shattering glass. Varian pelts toward the sound with Nuru at his heels, and Hugo bellows, “ _Now,_ Yong!”

“— _die—!_ ”

Hugo, hopping in place in front of a broken window, screaming something Varian can’t hear over the horrible _shriek_ behind them—Yong, winding back and hurling a blazing firework past them—

“Go _go gogogo!_ ” 

They hit the window. Hugo grabs his hand, and Varian grabs Nuru’s and she whoops as the four of them pile out of the window together—

And _fall,_ straight over a ledge.

Varian screams, and the library explodes. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

_Oh,_ Varian thinks dizzily, a moment or two later, _snow. That’s– that’s good. Hahaha._

It’s piled up deep at the base of the—cliff? Retaining wall. Underneath where the library used to be. By the time Varian flounders his way out of the drift, Yong has already staggered clear. He squints up at the manor, his face scrunched up in thought, shading his eyes against the sun with one sooty hand.

“Well, guys,” he says. “I got good news, and I got bad news.”

“Lead with the good,” Nuru says, muffled. A moment later her head breeches the snow with a quiet _poff!_

“Good news,” says Yong, “I think crazy grimoire lady is… gone. Probably.”

Groaning, Hugo sits up beside Varian, rubs his head, and reaches under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Great. And the bad news is…?”

Yong looks solemnly down at them all, clasping his hands, and says, “It has now been _zero days_ since my last explosion.”

Silence. Flakes of ash drift down like snow. One lands on the tip of Varian’s nose, tickly, and he swats it away with a sniff.

“Yong, kiddo. Buddy. I’m gonna kill you,” Hugo says evenly.

Yong, grinning hugely, flashes him a thumbs-up.


	3. Chapter 3: Yn Nos

###  **Chapter Three** **◆** **_Yn Nos_**

Things had gotten _hectic_ after the explosion. 

There had been fires to douse. Explanations to offer to an alarmed Calliope and fascinated Rosalia, who turned up maybe ten minutes after the blast with a sobbing Bellecote in tow. They had all ventured into the ruined library to salvage what they could of the books, and to their immense surprise found Lady Vivienne _alive._ Dazed and rather singed, but alive.

Then they’d needed to explain everything to _her._

And piece by piece, they puzzled the whole story together.

The late Lord Ghorskeyn’s grimoire had been cherished so long it had developed an… _impression_ of the man who wrote it. An echo. Rosalia, with a thin little smile, confessed to having seen the phenomenon occur once or twice before and, suspecting the possibility that it might happen again, made arrangements to put _them_ between herself and the potentially sentient evil book.

“And I was right,” she had added, smug and utterly without shame. “As always.”

At some point, probably about a week before they all arrived in Cardon, Lady Vivienne had… touched the grimoire, or picked it up, or perhaps tried to _read_ it. All that pent-up, neglected arcane energy had poured itself into _her,_ and—

Well. _She_ doesn’t remember, but as far as they could guess based on Rosalia’s experience and Bellecote’s tearfully incoherent explanations, it had figured out the danger it was in and tried to masquerade as _her_ long enough to dispose of the strangers who wished to acquire it.

But absent constant reinforcement, that kind of magical pressure never lasts long. It had been fading even before Yong lobbed a live firework at it and forced it to burn itself out trying to preserve its vessel… which meant Lady Vivienne survived, but the book had not.

What remained of the grimoire was a blackened and crumbling binding and hundreds of blank vellum pages. Rosalia surrendered it to their care and spent a few hours sulkily picking through the ashes with Lady Vivienne, collecting consolation prizes. Bellecote wept and thanked them and wept some more, until Calliope took pity on him and made him a cup of tea, which calmed him down.

When they left for Tarazed, Lady Vivienne had been chattering gleefully about burning the rest of the manor down after clearing it of dangerous artifacts and sentimental heirlooms, no worse for wear after her ordeal.

And that was that.

All in all, Varian supposes, it had gone pretty _well._

“You were right,” he remarks, as Nuru sidles up to him with two mugs of hot cider. “Ghorskeyn Manor? Solid seven. Prescient as always, oh Princess of Doom.”

“And you _doubted_ me. Tsk, tsk,” she says, grinning, as she presses a mug into his hands. “Come on, dummy, you’re gonna miss the fireworks.”

Her tone brooks no argument, so Varian follows her out of the gleaming diamond of the ballroom and into the palace gardens. A bitter breeze flows down the mountainside into which the palace is built, but it isn’t as cold as Varian expected; the pebbled garden paths are all threaded with heaters, which radiate enough delicious warmth to soften the chilly night.

As for the gardens themselves, well—Varian tries not to gawk, but it’s hard. Garlands of glowing rune-beads and stained-glass lanterns have transformed the dark formal garden into a nest of artificial stars. Hundreds of tiny candles swirl sedately in the shallow pools that weave through the immaculate foliage. Warm golden light shines everywhere. 

“So Yn Nos,” Varian says. “Big light festival in the middle of winter. Pretty different from Sun-Eater’s Night. What’s the uh, story here?”

“Mmm. Depends where you ask.” Nuru sips her cider, pensive for a moment, and when she speaks again, her tone has dropped into the placid cadence he recognizes, with a grin, as her Princess Voice. “ _Ours_ is that—a long, long time ago—the sun became angry with my ancestors. We took her light, warmth, and beauty for granted, you see, and she didn’t like that one bit. She approached our leaders and asked them to show her some appreciation. Nothing extravagant, of course, nothing burdensome: just a small token of esteem now and then, in remembrance of all she gave.

“But my ancestors had forgotten their reliance on the sun. They laughed and scorned her, proudly claiming all the credit for their bountiful harvests and pleasant, easy lives. They did not need the sun at all, they told her, and would be quite fine without her; and so, they bade her to leave.

“Furious, the sun did just that. She took herself away, warmth and light and all, and plunged the world into darkness for months. In her absence, the crops failed, homes froze, and people fell ill…”

The gardens open out into a vast, flat circle. A tall fountain burbles in the center, ringed in flower beds, its water glowing like molten gold in the reflection of a thousand lights. There’s quite a crowd; guests of the Tarazedian court, milling in the open space or gathering on the benches lining the perimeter. 

Beaming, Nuru tugs him onto one of the vacant benches.

“…Of course,” she continues, “my ancestors realized the gravity of their error at once, but when they cried out for mercy, the sun refused to hear them. So, they devised a plan. They would host a grand festival in honor of the absent sun, to celebrate all she had given them and mourn the calamitous loss they had brought upon themselves. They sang, they danced, they raised fires and enchantments, and they filled the endless night with their rekindled love for the sun.

“So heartfelt and beautiful were their efforts that the sun agreed to return—but slowly. No longer would she burn bright and warm for us every day of the year, lest we forget, again, to give her our respect. Instead, she would ebb and flow as the tides do: every year retreating and returning again. When she is here, we rejoice, and call it summer; and when she is gone, we hold her fire in our hearts, and call it winter. 

“And that is why—on this, the darkest night, when the sun is furthest away—we celebrate sunlight, for we know she will always, always come back.”

“Wow.”

Nuru giggles. “I used to give Mum _so_ much trouble for it. ‘But _Muuu-uuum,_ we have seasons because the _planet_ goes around the _sun_ in an _elliptical pattern_ —’”

“Oh, no! You were one of _those!_ ” 

“I was!” She snorts into her cider. “Awful, isn’t it? But I like the story now. I’ve matured into appreciating folktales.”

“Ha! I went through my skeptical brat phase when I was about, oh, twelve? It’s probably a miracle Dad survived that without ripping all his hair out.”

“The poor man. I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah.” Chuckling, Varian settles back against the bench. Past the circle of the gardens, there’s an expanse of flat white, broken in the distance by the dark racks of fireworks. He can _just_ make out two little figures moving along them. Yong and Hugo, working the fuses.

“They’re new,” Nuru says, following his gaze.

“Hm?”

“The fireworks. That’s an Aberdinian custom. Yong talked Mum into it—not that he had to try all _that_ hard. She likes burning things almost as much as he does—oh! There they go!” 

Light flares in the distance. The first firework soars into the sky, trailing red-and-gold sparks, shrilling like a tea kettle until it hits its peak and—

_BOOM._

Whorls of glittering rosy light burst against the sky. Red, fading to pink, and then it’s followed by three more—gold, green, red again…

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

The last firework explodes with a roar so loud Hugo feels it in his _bones._ Yong had called this one _sunrise in a bottle,_ and the description, he decides, is apt. Petals of crimson-orange-pink-lavender light blossom overhead, gleaming and bright.

Grinning, Hugo stamps his feet on the snow and digs the plugs out of his ears. “Whew!” 

“Whew!” Yong agrees, bouncing with excitement. “That was great!”

“Hell of a show, kiddo. Good work.” He gives Yong a moment to soak in the praise before he grins. “Now—shall we return to the nice, warm palace, or do you wanna wait until my feet fall _all_ the way off?”

Yong snickers. “Yeah, yeah, come on—you big baby.”

He scoops his kit onto his shoulders and begins to tromp back toward the palace. Hugo strides after him, trying to rub some feeling back into his fingers.

As the last echoes of the firework fade, Yong says, “Hugo?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re good at like… boy stuff, right?”

Hugo blinks. “Boy… stuff?”

“Yeah, like, like– if hypothetically there is…” Clearing his throat, Yong scuffs his foot through the snow. Soft powder sprays up in a feathery arc. Hugo raises an eyebrow. “…a boy.”

“…So you have a crush, is what you’re saying.”

“May– maybe! No!!”

“You _so_ do.”

Yong splutters. “Okay– okay, you got me! His name is Ramesh and he’s training to be a blacksmith, and he’s really tall and– and, and _dreamy_ — _stop laughing!!_ ” 

“Sorry– sorry! Gods, Yong, sorry.” Coughing into his fist to smother the last of his amusement, Hugo flattens his voice and says, “It’s just—of course you’d go for someone who sticks bits of metal into fire for a living.”

“…Listen. Shut up.”

“Shutting! Okay, so. Boy stuff. You want advice on how to… ask him out?”

“Yeah.”

_Oh, brother._

The thing is.

The thing is, Hugo knows how to _charm_ people; he knows how to flirt and fluster and give people a good time, but– but when it comes to actual… _romance,_ he’s out of his depth. 

“Okay. Okay, um… Well play it cool.”

Like he’s been playing it super, _super_ cool with Varian. So super cool that he’s pretty sure all his nerve-wracking, aborted attempts to spill the beans have whistled right over Varian’s messy black hair. By… several miles. 

Good gods, Hugo is _not_ good at boy stuff. 

“But not like, _too_ cool! I mean, you don’t want him to think you’re not into– you know what, never mind all that. You’re plenty cool, you don’t gotta _play_ anything. Just, like, figure out something that he likes, that you also like, and then… do that. Together. And uh, see… what happens.”

_Yeesh._ The kid’s doomed.

“Do that together,” Yong echoes, in the same tone he uses when he’s committing a complicated chemical formula to memory. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Aaaaand as the closest thing to a responsible adult in this situation I’m legally obligated to tell you that the ‘thing’ cannot be arson, Yong.”

“I don’t think the law says you have to say that,” Yong says airily. He smirks. “But, _noted._ Actually I was thinking we could hike the Scorpion’s Tail.” 

“The…what.”

“That’s a mountain near Antares.”

“Ohhh. Gotcha. Hiking! Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Romantic. Good views. Non-destructive. Very legal. Hopefully no actual scorpions.”

He grins. So does Yong. 

“Thanks, Hugo.”

“Sure, kid.”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

After the fireworks, the party migrates back indoors in fits and starts. Varian hovers by the buffet table, grazing happily, while the royal orchestra strikes up a jaunty tune and the dancing begins. 

He spots Yong bouncing along the periphery, wildly off-beat in his own little corner of chaos; and Nuru is in the center of it all, whirling through the steps of the dance with the easy grace of someone raised for it.

“Wanna dance?”

Varian jolts, yelping. Hugo practically _materializes_ by his shoulder, wearing a smug little smile that says he was sneaky on _purpose._

“ _You—!_ ” 

“Mm. Whatcha get for befriending ex-thieves.” 

Rubbing his chest as his heartbeat settles down again, Varian mutters, “You’ve gotta start wearing a bell or something. Like a cat.”

“Oh, but where’s the fun in that?” Hugo tilts his head, grinning; his pale blonde hair catches the light of the chandelier and gleams like spun gold. “So. Dance?”

“I don’t know the steps.”

“Well. Neither do I. So.” Smiling wryly, he flicks a glance at the dance floor, then holds out his hand. “We can make fools of ourselves, but… Together?”

He applies an unusual amount of weight to the word, and Varian raises his eyebrows. Behind the glittering reflections of the Yn Nos lights in his glasses, Hugo’s eyes shine with their own light. Bright. _Nervous._

It makes Varian feel a bit jittery himself, but he grins.

“Okay,” he says, reaching out to take Hugo’s hand. “Yeah. Let’s dance.”


End file.
